^01 



THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 59 



;onsidered worth 36^. a year, and for 12 horses and 12 oxen 

 worth 485-. a year, with 40 acres of wood, estimated at is. an 

 acre. In 1387, however, the arable land had decreased to 

 320 acres, but the stock had increased, and now numbered 

 1^^ cart horses, 6 stotts or smaller horses, 10 oxen, i bull, 

 ^^^B cows, 6 heifers, 6 calves, 92 wethers, 20 hoggerells or two- 

 I^Hfear-old sheep, i gander, 4 geese, 30 capons, 26 hens, and only 

 ^^le cock. The dairy of 26 cows was let out, according to the 

 custom of the time, for £S a year ; and we are told that the 

 oxen were fed on oats, and shod in the winter only. 



But if the position of the lords was severely affected by the 

 great pestilence that of the villeins was also. The villein him- 

 self was becoming a copyholder ; in the thirteenth century 

 the nature of his holding had been written on the court roll, 

 before long he was given a copy of the roll, and by the 

 fifteenth century he was a copyholder.^ There was, too, 

 a new spirit abroad in this century of disorganization and 

 reform, which stirred even the villeins with a desire for 

 better conditions of life. These men, thus rising to a more as- 

 sured position and animated by new hopes, saw all round them 

 hired labourers obtaining, in spite of the Statute of Labourers, 

 double the amount of wages they had formerly received, 

 while they were bound down to the same services as before. 

 The advance in prices was further increased by the king's 

 issuing in 1351 an entirely new coinage, of the same fineness 

 but of less weight than the old ; so that the demands of the 

 labourers after the Black Death were largely justified by 

 the depreciation in the currency.^ There had also arisen 

 at this time, owing to the increase in the wealth of the country, 

 a new class of landlords who did not care for the old system^; 

 and it is probably these men who are meant by the statute 

 I Ric. II, c. 6, which complains that the villeins daily with- 

 drew their services to their lords at the instigation of various 



* Medley, Constitutional History, p. 52. 



"^ Cunningham, op. cit. i. 328, and 335-6. ^ Domesday of S. Paul, p. Ivii. 



